So glad we'll be getting 12 songs in total instead of 10!! Can't wait for the new songs, the titles are very interesting this time!

Extra songs is a pleasant surprise! I agree the song titles sound interesting - looking forward to the credits!

It should be the full concerts for all 3

But if you managed to download the footages when Hulu Japan streamed them then at least you have something to fall back on in case avex did not make that happen

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Kuu & other artistes will be taking part in Kishidan's tribute album that will be released on 30th March

No word for now which Kishidan song Kuu will cover

https://twitter.com/kishidan_staff/s...34512691462144

^ They're all gonna be One Night Carnival.

I wonder what's the strategy with the early release.

Interesting!

I think releasing all the songs from heart digitally a month before the album's physical release would further impact CD sales

Kuu should have done what KAT-TUN did last year when they released Roar which was marketed to celebrate their 15th anniversary

1 of the songs Flashback was not made available in any of the 8 versions of Roar , you only can get it digitally

And that indirectly led to their best 1st week sales for a single since 2010

That said I do not know if such a marketing tactic would work for Kuu

^ Sorry, but I think I didnt get it? How could a song only available for streaming boost physical sales? To me sounds like the sales were boosted by eight versions of a CD rather than that but I dont really know them nor their numbers

Kumi did something similar to Hikki's BAD MODE btw, the album is up for streaming since last week but it won't come out physically in a month. I guess that at this point in Kumi's career, people who buy her albums will buy them regardless of digital releases. Then, probably, their strategy might be:
- Hardcore fans will buy it regardless of the early streaming release
- Casual fans will have a month to have a moment of"oh Kuu released something new and it's nice, I think I'll buy it" and then proceed to pre-ordering it
- People who are not fans but still will listen to her wouldnt buy it either way so it makes no difference to sales

tldr; I think they wanna use the digital release as an early promotion strategy focused on casual fans to boost pre-orders

Sorry I should not have used KAT-TUN as an example

Out of 8 versions of Roar , only 6 of them were counted towards Oricon

Instead I feel that instead of releasing the entire heart album digitally a month before its physical release , avex should hold back in not releasing everything digitally , maybe leave out a song or 2 ?

If not I wouldn't have any incentive to buy the physical album , other than for the DVD/Blu-ray footages & the CD booklet

Then again I don't know , others would see this differently from me

^ That's probably why we didnt get a CD Only version this time btw. Probably it already didnt sell as much as other versions, and nowadays with streaming services it's completely pointless unless for collectors which are probably very few and not profittable enough. I don't think it'll be that bad for Kuu at this point, but we will have to wait a bit to find out if they did it right lol

^ Like you said let's see how things will go regarding this strategy avex utilised this time to promote heart

I know buying music let alone video footages online is here to stay & the norm but it's not the same as having a physical copy of a release

I wonder if Kuu would ever go back to release proper CD singles cos it has been so long since HOTEL was released

Even if she chose to do that , she should have stop at like 60th single or something instead of 57th ?

I noticed this digital early release thing they're starting to do with other artists too. Daichi Miura has released several of his most recent singles over the past year or 2 digitally a few weeks before the physical copies were out. Same with many of HYDE's singles as well even though I know he'sunder a different label. If it's becoming a thing in Japan then I can definitely see this happening more and more with all of Kuu's future releases as well.
Also, while I know I'm in the extremely small minority these days I still always buy physical releases and use them at home and in the car only saving digital listenings for the music I add to my phone for when I'm not in either place. I just really enjoy using physical copies. It feels far more personal to me and I just love having something physical in front of me.

I hope they never do that “there is one song only on physical” thing ever. I hate that. That’s a song I will never ever listen to since I don’t have a CD slot on my Mac and can’t rip that (more over, it does not count to streams). Urgh. So frustrating. Step up your packaging/ bonus game like Korea does.

it's coming!!!!

Really like the colours from the thumb, seems like it'll be done way better than Wicked Girls at least in the CG part. Cant wait for Wednesday!

Made a new thread. Will update the first post later today.